Nearly Dying Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me - Sherilyn Shackell

What happens when external success starts fracturing your soul? Sherilyn Shackell, founder of the Marketing Academy, didn't walk away from a lucrative headhunting career — she was forced out of it by burnout and a serious illness that made her rethink everything. What came next was one of the most extraordinary not-for-profit leadership organisations in the world, built entirely on generosity, reciprocity, and the belief that exceptional talent deserves exceptional development.

In this conversation with Richard Reid, Sherilyn talks candidly about the moment she realised she was living a discordant life — professionally successful, personally unfulfilled — and how that near-death wake-up call became the catalyst for founding the Marketing Academy in 2010. Fifteen years on, the Academy now runs free, highly selective leadership programs across the UK, US, Australia and Asia, with over 1,400 alumni in 40 countries and a virtual campus reaching 10,000 people.

Sherilyn and Richard dig into the psychology of the "treadmill of doom" — how we end up chasing success in careers we didn't consciously choose, driven by parental expectations, peer pressure and external validation — and what it actually takes to step off it. They also explore the CMO-to-CEO pipeline the Academy is quietly building, the power of human-first leadership, and why Sherilyn believes you have 100% ownership over how you choose to think — even when the world feels like it's heading towards Armageddon.

Timestamps

01:24 Why marketing, media and advertising can change the world

02:18 From headhunter to founder — Sherilyn's unconventional route in

05:33 Intrinsic motivation — being good at something vs. loving it

06:18 Living a discordant life — when joy and purpose aren't aligned

08:42 The treadmill of doom — how parental expectations shape careers

10:51 Inside the Marketing Academy programs — scholars, fellows and alumni

29:48 The ripple effect — CMOs becoming CEOs, alumni feeding back in

31:39  What's next — virtual campus, geographic expansion and alumni investment

🔗 Connect with 

Sherilyn Shackell — Founder & CEO, The Marketing Academy

Website:marketingacademy.org

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/sherilynshackelllinkedin.com/in/sherilynshackell

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/sherilyn_tma/

⭐️ Connect and Subscribe

Thank you for joining us on The Business of Thinking podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and leave a rating! It helps us bring more insightful content on the psychology of high performance. Find more about Richard Reid’s work at www.richard-reid.com.

Download the first two chapter of Richard’s “Charisma Unlocked”, audio or PDF version for free and begin your transformation towards authentic charisma:

https://richard-reid.com/master-authentic-charisma/

Production Credit: Edited and produced by @the32collective_ / https://www.the32collective.co/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the business of thinking podcast. This is the place for high achievers.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hello and welcome to the business of thinking. My name is Richard Reid, and today I'm joined by Sherilyn Shackle from the Marketing Academy. Sherilyn, welcome. Really good to have you here.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

So tell us more about the Marketing Academy and then we'll take the conversation from there.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Yeah, sure. Well, we're quite an unusual organization, I guess, but we have been around for 15 years now. So I founded it back in 2010. And we exist to develop the talent in marketing, media, and advertising. And we do so by providing world-class development programs in three regions. So in UK and EMEA, in the US and in Australia and Asia Pac now. And we run programs that are really all about enabling the top talent to become exceptional. And we do it at two different levels. We do it for emerging leaders that are on their way up in their careers. And we also run a global program for chief marketing officers where we're endeavouring to help them develop to become CEOs. So it's it's very industry or sector specific in multimedia and advertising, but we're in this sector because we truly believe that market and advertising can change the world. And it has influence over all of us on the planet, and therefore, you know, the talent that's behind it deserves to be the best that they can possibly be. So they deserve to be invested in from a leadership point of view and from professional development, personal development, just enabling them to be the best they can be. So that's what we do. But we are a not-for-profit. So what makes us unusual is that our programs are totally free of charge, um, but they're highly selective. So it takes a lot to get in to become one of our um scholars, as we call the Emerging Leader Programme, or our fellows, as we call the CMO program. Takes a lot to get in, but you know, once you're in, you're in because you're you're amazing, and we're going to help you to become even more exceptional.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Fantastic. So I'm keen to find out more about the program and the kind of things that you include in that. But before we do that, tell us a little bit about your entry point into this. How did you arrive in this sphere?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Well, I'm not a marketer, which is uh something that surprises a lot of people given that the organisation is called the Marketing Academy. But I have always been fascinated about developing talent, uh, specifically around the leadership piece. I spent the first um kind of major uh proportion of my career as a headhunter. So from the ages of 24 to kind of mid-40s, I was a headhunter and quite a successful one, um, but not a marketer. I was fascinated about marketing media and advertising because I always, always believed that you know this was the industry that was really required in boardrooms for the future. Um, so I was interested in the space, but I was really quite passionate about developing talent because as a headhunter, it's all and only about talent. And and as a headhunter, you never really get the opportunity to work with the talent that you place in role. So, you know, you do you do a search, you'd get them the best person, they'd start in role, and then you really don't speak to them again. And that always wound me up a bit. And so uh I think it was uh in my 30s, in my lit mid to late 30s, I became involved with a leadership development company in the UK. I joined their board, I went through their Train the Trainer programme, and they that really opened my eyes to the power of leadership development, so I was passionate about it, and then I had a big sort of change moment in my life. I I I hit burnout, um, I got very, very ill, and um the recovery from the illness was part of that recovery, it was all about thinking how I was going to live my life going forward, if I did indeed survive the illness, which obviously I did. I knew I needed to make some pretty big changes in my life, and I needed um and wanted a career that was going to fill me with joy, which headhunting never really did. It it served a purpose, it was financially very lucrative, but didn't really fill me with joy, and I wanted to do something different, and I wanted it to be philanthropic, and I wanted it to be in the not-for-profit space, and and it it this all happened in 2009, so you know the world had gone to shit that year. It was really bad year. And they're just yeah, and I thought, well, what what what to do then? I'll set up my own thing, and um, and we launched the the academy in February 2010, and I closed my executive search firm, my headhunting firm a couple of years later, and I've never looked back. So I had a bit of a you know, a bit of an odd route in um.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, but it's so often the case, isn't it? And I I think you know, you touched on a really important point there about intrinsic motivation. Actually, you can be really successful at something, it can be very lucrative, but actually, if you can't emotionally connect with it, then it then it's quite tiring, isn't it? And and maybe that was part of the the the fuel behind the the burnout is what is it actually you're doing something that wasn't energizing you?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

I could I can't I can't agree more. I I often I often when I think back, I I wasn't aware of it at the time. That's you know why I do what I do now, to ensure that nobody in my sphere of influence has to go through you know a situation where you nearly die to to get the wake-up call that you that you need to look at your life and and think about it differently. Because at the time, you know, if you were outside of my life looking in, it would have looked amazing because of all of the external success measures that you know that degree of commercial success brings you. But I always felt like it was kind of fracturing my soul, like like there was this sort of split in inside me. There was this split, there was this, I need to do this because I need to earn money and I'm good at it, um, but I'm not loving it, it's not giving me any joy. And you know, that means that you're effectively living what I now learn, learnt is a discordant life, um, you know, where you where your joys and passions are not aligned with what you're doing 40 or 50 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Um, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 6:37

It's it's huge, yeah, really huge. So yeah, I might have nearly died, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, and and so and sometimes we I I'm a believer that we need these things to be forced upon us to really kind of sit back and register the message the world's trying to take tell us. Yeah, we did we're not covering it from a spiritual point of view, but there's something in it, I think.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

There is definitely something in that, you know, the universe delivers you. I I believe that the universe delivers you what you need when you need it. However, I really did think at the time I don't want anybody else to have to go through this before they give themselves the time and space to sit on a mountaintop somewhere and really interrogate, you know, what their life, what they want their life to be. Because I am now a believer and probably proof that you can create any kind of life you want. But you but you've got to be given the space and time. And ideally, I want people to understand that they can get the space and time, you know, without having some sort of external situation or trauma or drama or or whatever it might be to force it on them. I I don't think at time anything would have stopped me doing what I was doing, other than that kind of wake-up call. But that's not right. You know, not right. Nobody, nobody ever said to me, Are you really happy? And are you really doing something that fills you with joy? Are you really utilising the stuff that you love? Um, or are you unhappy, really? Are you feeling unfulfilled? You know, what elements of your life would you change if you knew you could? Nobody was saying that to me, and I certainly wasn't saying it to myself. And so a lot of what we do with our programmes around the world now is we give our we give our people the opportunity to question their purpose in life and how they're going to live it going forward.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

That's that's brilliant. That's brilliant. Because so often we absorb these uh pressures, these expectations from the world around us, don't we? They're not necessarily things to be chosen.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Yeah, so and sometimes from a really early age, you know, sometimes, you know, if if you if you're not if you're not really mindful about it, um, you know, you you can have put yourself on a path because that's what your mum and dad expected you to do. You know, the the expectations from when you're eight years old of what you're gonna do and who you're gonna be and how you're gonna get there. And oftentimes, and it's mostly done with love, our parents fuck us up. Yeah, you know, because there's all there's all sorts of external impetus that makes you think, well, I've got to do this. And then, you know, as you get older, you've then got your peer groups, and then if you go to college or uni or even school, you know, you've got people around you achieving different things, and so you think that's the expected norm, and then you get onto that treadmill that is you become successful at something, you don't necessarily have to love it, or it does help, but you can be good at something and not love it. You find yourself good at something, you get a little bit of success, you get the kind of external validation of that success, and at that point you're on the treadmill.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

So at that point, you've and the lifestyle that goes with it as hard to walk away from it and start again.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Everything, everything. So, you know, you're you start to have to work harder just to keep what you've got, because you don't want to lose what you've got, let alone the driver to get more of it, but you're working hard just to stay still and to not lose any uh you know any of it, and then you've got to work a little bit harder, and then you get a little bit more, and that's even more enjoyable, so you have to work even harder to keep that little bit extra, and it's just I call it the treadmill of doom. It doesn't apply to everybody, but does apply to a lot of people, more than anybody will admit to. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I do a lot of work with lawyers and not obviously not all of them, but a significant number of them get to a certain age and think, Well, why am I doing this? It's exhausting. Actually, I never, as you say, didn't consciously choose this, it was kind of an expectation, you know, maybe what my parents wanted me to do, that sort of thing. Uh, and it and it catches up with people. So it's really, really um refreshing to hear that that in some way that's baked into the the program that you've created. So tell us more about the program. How do you get onto it and what kind of things does it entail?

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Well, as I said, there's two there's two main main programs um that we run in the three regions, and uh and then we also run alumni programs for them, which are obviously much bigger. We've now got 1400 alumni around the world, and we run a lot of programming for them. We'll we'll be you know pride providing them support and input and inspiration for the rest of their careers. But the two main programs, which is the scholarship program, which is for the emerging leaders, and the fellowship program, which is for the CMOs, are both selective pro programs. So for the scholarship, you have to be nominated by someone. So if you'll be nominated by your boss or your agency or your client or your mum, you've got to be nominated by somebody, and then you get invited to apply, and it's a three-stage, very competitive selection process that goes over a three-month period. Um, so there's uh there's all sorts of hoops that they have to they have to jump through.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

You've got to be really committed to wanting to do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, it's it's two things. We've got to make sure that we're we've got the the best of the best on the programs because everybody that's involved in the teaching and development, so the faculties that actually deliver all of the learning, they are the good and the great in the industry. So they are the industry's CEOs, chief marketing officers, subject matter experts, creatives, academics, authors, sports people, and they all gift their time for free. Everybody gives their time for free. It's how we can deliver the programs, you know, for no money. Um, and therefore the calibre's got to be right, you know, they've got to know if they if they're gifting their wisdom and their knowledge and their experience, the calibre's got to be high. But also the individuals that go on the programs have to want it, right? Because it's not it's not a short-term commitment, you know, the programs are nine months long, there are about 15 days of learning spread over nine months.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, and this is this face-to-face or online?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, all in person.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

All of it is in person, and and the and the residentials and our boot camps, as we call them, take place all over the world. Uh, and then they have uh executive um coaching. So every single scholar and fellow is matched with a board-level executive coach, which is a one-on-one relationship, which goes over the nine months. And then both the scholars and the fellows meet with mentors one-to-one during the nine-month period. So they spend, you know, an hour, hour and a half with a board practitioner or somebody, you know, a real somebody very high level. Um, and then they go to the boot camps and the residentials, which are very intense, multiple days residential, taking them out of the city, uh, which is really immersive learning. So tough to get on, but when you do, we're the the programs are designed very holistically. So there's a huge element that is around personal growth and you know, discovering your purpose, and then there's a professional skills element on both of the programs, yeah, different content on both of the programs, obviously, but they're a big professional development uh element. Um, and then leadership development is a very, very big pillar, so you know, ensuring that people become inspirational leaders in any capacity is really valuable for us. So those are the two main programs, and then as I said, they join their own alumni programs which we run regionally, and we do have now, after the pandemic, we do actually have a virtual program which isn't open to the whole industry yet, but that's the direction of travel, which enables us to share our learning with a wider community. It's called the Marketing Academy Virtual Campus, and it is exclusively online, and there's about 250 hours of learning online, which is about leadership, self-mastery, well-being, and professional skills. And we gift all of the delegates of our programs, we gift them places to gift on to their team members, and we're also sponsor-funded, so every single one of our programs around the world are sponsored by big brands or big agencies or big professional services firms, and we give them a shit ton of places to enroll their talent on the virtual campus.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

So we've got about 10,000 people enrolled on the virtual campus in 83 countries now, so it's become huge. We developed it because we had to during the pandemic, and we really developed it for our alumni because we couldn't get them together physically, and then because we were delivering it virtually, we're saying, hey, your teams want to come and see this session, that's fine. Here's the link, you know, share it. But what we do do now with the virtual campus is that we give away a thousand golden tickets every year to people in the industry that have been made redundant or laid off or terminated for whatever reason, given that that's happening everywhere. Uh, and also those that are in freelance roles, so they're like their sole practitioners and they don't have either the money or the time to get yeah, because they could fall between the cracks, couldn't they? Yeah, they do fall between the cracks, and you know, when do you need that stuff more? You need it when at your time of need. And you know, if you're if you're working alone and it's tough, or if you're an entrepreneur and it's tough, or you've been fired or made redundant and it's really hard, then the virtual campus learning is amazing for that. So we give a thousand places a year on the virtual campus to anybody who can just apply it through through our website, apply for a golden ticket, and you get 12 months access to all of the back catalogue of virtual stuff. So that's a program that we've been developing quite quite big time over the last four or five years. And I think you know, our direction of travel is I want it to be huge. We want the whole industry on it, and I want to be able to provide this amazing world-class learning for all of the talent in our industry eventually. We've just got to figure out a way to get there.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, yeah. But it sounds like you've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it feels like I mean, it it's the it's one of the loves of my life.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

So Well, you you can you can tell just just looking at your face as you're talking about it, your lights up.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

It is amazing, but um, you know, when I look at it, there were so many people involved in the ideation of the whole thing. You know, I might have been the founder in in what you know, in the job title. Um, but actually it was the culmination of, you know, when we launched probably about 200 people coming together and helping to figure out what this thing was going to be like. And now it's it's huge and uh and having a massive impact and a big ripple effect on on the industry, you know, with most of the companies all over the world trying desperately to get their talent on it, uh, which is what we wanted to achieve, so that we would be developing the board boardrooms of the future in our industry and entrepreneurs, we have founders on it as well. Um, and so now when I look at it, I think the impact has been has been massive. And then you know, some days it feels like it was yesterday. And I look at it and think, oh my god, how how has this even happened? And then, you know, other things I think, oh, this is my life's work and I've been doing it all my life, and and it's amazing. So, yeah, it's a big gift.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

That's fantastic, fantastic. So, tell us more about sort of the thinking behind it. So, you've mentioned obviously in a lot of organisations, marketing doesn't have a seat at the main table. No. What's what's your rationale behind that?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Uh well that's that's part of it, trying to connect, trying to connect that. So the CEO's not not uh uh look, it's a bit different now. We're 15 years on, and the landscape in our industry has changed and shifted for the good. When I launched the academy back in 2010, and remember I was a headhunter, so most of my clients were the CEOs, and most of our clients were the big blue chip consumer and tech companies. Um in 2010, in the FTSE 100, there were only four board-appointed CMOs in the FTSE 100, so only four companies. That was like Unilever, DIGO, Aviva, BT. Um, so I could name those four CMOs.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah, that tells you everything to know, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, it's it says everything, right? Now it's different, it's shifted, it's definitely shifted, and it's different regionally. So more um marketing as a skill set or customer as a skill set is more high has always been more highly regarded in the US than it has in the UK and EMEA. And APAC is even further behind where we were, so APAC's got a way to go. Um, but the states probably led it. So if you were in sales or marketing, if commercial or customer, then you'd get a seat on a board more easily than you could in the UK and way more easily than you could in in APAC. Um, and it used to frustrate me as a headhunter. You know, I'd speak to the CEOs and they usually when you bring a headhunter in, it's a distress purchase, it's normally because somebody's either fucked up or been fired. There are times when it's for growth, but it's not often. It's usually a distress purchase. And you'd speak to a CEO going, oh my god, you know, we've got competitive threat coming in, we've got this happening, we got you know, margins are being slashed, or this, this. And I'd go, well, where's your CMO in this? You know, where's where's the seat? In your board for your CMOs. No, no, no, the CMOs don't sit on the board. No, they're over there doing that cool, that cool, pretty stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

I mean, it sounds crazy on the face of it because it sounds like it's uh it's uh a way of generating more revenue.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

It's the only way. In our opinion, like if you really harness the power of it, it's the only way. And look, with the advent of tech over the last 10 years, that's changed, and with the you know, the advent of really understanding data and analytics, it's changing because all of that sits under the CMO domain now, but 15 years ago it just didn't. Um, you know, the CMOs did pretty advertising, and if they're in B2B, they do some lead generation and events, and that's where it came from. Um, but even back then, I was looking at these companies thinking, well, I don't get it. You know, you've got your your CMO has the heart of your customer or consumer or client in the palm of their hands. They understand their, you know, what spite their blood pressure. Uh, they are the influencers and communicators of the business, internally and externally. Um, and their impact and their power of the tools that are available in media and advertising and marketing, touch every citizen on the planet. Every, you know, 8 billion people on the planet are influenced one way or another by something that comes out of marketing media advertising comms, right? In every and any context, even in the political landscape, we can put someone in power, right? That's the power of our craft. Um, so if you've got that much influence over eight billion people, why the hell are you not influencing the rest of your board group? And and you know, the decisions and choices that your CEOs and the other functional C-suite are uh are doing. So it is much, much better now. The percentage is way higher. Um, but you know, there's still this gap between certainly an understanding between the CMOs and their CEOs, it's and their CFOs. It's huge. And there is still a bit of a leaning um for chairs to appoint CEOs that have come up finance or operations or legal and or sales maybe, but even sales and marketing is so much closer now than it ever used to be. Um that the that the talent at the C in the CMO community was uh is still overlooked or or underutilized or underinvested in or

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah, underestimated. Um, and that's the drum that we bang globally is you wake up, you've got this superpower sitting in the corridors of your leadership. Well, they should be in the center of your boardroom. Because what could you do with that knowledge, combined with the knowledge for how to run a company? And that on our CMO program, that's what we're doing. You know, there's no marketing content on our CMO program. We're helping to bridge the understanding gap between the CMO seat and the seats of the rest of the board, yeah, in order to really advance and enhance the relationships that take place at the board and bridge the gaps that the CMOs have, especially if they've not been a main board member before, the gaps that they have, you know, the stuff that keeps the CEOs awake at night, the stuff that keeps the chairman awake at night, um, we're helping them to bridge that learning gap.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So important. And it definitely sounds as though the the the the pattern is changing. More companies are opening their minds up to this idea. Definitely. What are the objections that you're still encountering? Is it just purely about ignorance and lack of understanding or other other things that are?

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yeah, and language. It's it's mostly look, the CMOs don't do a brilliant job. I've got to be honest. You know, you can have a very, very unaware CEO who's a finance person, you know, who's come out of finance, who's really good at slashing cost, or who might be quite good at m MA, for example. Um, but the CMOs don't do a the the best job of advocating for themselves or does it mark it themselves? Yeah, they're rubbish at it. Um, obviously there's exceptions to this to this rule, and the ones that are the exceptions are the ones that are making the biggest impact because if they can become the absolute true and trusted advisor of the CEO, if they can enable the CEO to really understand the landscape of their customer or client or consumer population, then that CMO is is the you know it's the gold dust behind the throne. Um, but the CMOs don't do themselves uh a really good service some of the some of the time. So, you know, if the CEO knows nothing about the craft, and that's common, then it's the CMO's responsibility to to educate them and to stop using all of the vernacular that surrounds marketing, of which it's could write there's a different direction, it's a different dictionary, and start talking to the CEOs and the rest of the board in the language that they will understand. But to be able to do that, the CMOs need to understand what language it is they need to be speaking in. And if they're unaware and they don't know, then they can't change it, they can't take responsibility for changing it. So, you know, we help CMOs understand that part, that part of what they need to do. So how they advocate for their for their discipline and their function and their sectors and their expertise, but also how to translate, you know, the the their world into the language that the board are gonna understand. Yeah, and that's the biggest barrier, is that they just don't, they don't, they don't get it. They don't get it. And if the CEO really doesn't understand it, then that's a it is an uphill battle for the C for the CMO to get there. And I've spoken with CMOs that have been enrolled for years, working for the same CEO for years, and they'll say, you know, my CEO still doesn't get it. And I kind of want to go, well, one, that's your responsibility, and two, why the hell are you still there then? Because you know, if the if there's no door to push open, why are you banging your head on the door? Um, get the hell out and get so you know, get somewhere where you can make an impact. But so so it's two-sided, right? The CEOs aren't aware enough about the CMO domain or the potential power of it, and the CMOs aren't good at advocating it and aren't aware enough of how to explain it to the CEOs. Those are the biggest barriers.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

And and for me, you used a really key phrase a moment ago: trusted advisor. I think whatever walk of life you're being seen as a trusted advisor is really important that people actually feel that you understand their world and and you can relate to it and provide wisdom and input.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Absolutely, you've got to walk in their shoes, right? You've got to walk in the shoes of the people that you're trying to influence. You do that with the customers, you know. That's that's all the you know, the marketers are looking to walk in the shoes of their customers, their clients, and their consumers all of the time. They're looking, they're seeking understanding at molecular level in order to provide the right messaging that's going to have influence over them. Well, you need to be applying that to your entire board, you know, you forensically understand what it is that the drivers on every single seat on that in that boardroom, and then adapt and moderate your messaging to have influence over those people. If you're not aware of what those people need to hear or need to understand, then you can't take responsibility for changing it. But if you can you know show the empathy, the compassion, the deep understanding that the knowledge that you know what's keeping them awake at night, not only do you know what's keeping them awake at night, but you figured out a solution to be able to help them to have a good night's sleep, then you're in a position to become the trusted advisor. You've got to earn it.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

And it's it's funny, isn't it, that we're talking about people who can do this day in, day out, but not and not necessarily making that connection between what they do externally and what they do internally within the organization.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

I know, I know, but nobody does. I mean, look, the academy exists in multimedia and advertising, right? But this kind of development stuff, this kind of thinking could sit in every function. Because nobody does this. You know, you haven't got a CFO worrying about how to get inside the head of his C uh his or her or their CMO, right? Finance, the CFO is not sitting there thinking, I really, really need to understand what's keeping my CMO awake at night. But they should be.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Right? They really should be. So, you know, it's around the it this applies, and that's what a lot of our obviously we exist in the industry of advertising and media, and we exist in this in the function of marketing, and you know, but we know that our teaching could be taught anywhere, apart from the little bit, certainly in a scholarship where we might look at the professional skill base a bit more. We don't in the fellowship at all, there's nothing in the fellowship program that is about marketing at all. And so I believe that all in all the functions of of of a certainly of an operating board should seek a way to be exceptional as as you know, as practitioners of their craft within the organization and really understand and communicate and influence the rest of their bull book. Yeah, it's just not done. Yeah, it's really not.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, yeah. I think the work that you're doing is is is is fantastic and uh you know it sounds sounds that you're already starting to see the benefits of that in in the wider industry.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Oh yeah, for for sure. I mean, uh, you know, you've just got to look at the the industry moves that happen within our alumni because we're close with them, we track them all the time. You know, I've got scholars that you know started that came on the programme 15 years ago, just as close to us now as they were then. Um, but then our CEOs, you know, that we've got CMOs that have become CEOs, we've got a lot of CMOs that are now non-X on boards, um, and they're and they're leading in the way in which we teach. So they're leading, you know, human first, authenticity, integrity, all of the wonderful newer thinking around leadership. That's how they're now leading, and the ripple effect is huge. You know, you get a couple of uh we've got there's about five companies around the world that have got co-CEOs, two CEOs that are both our alum, four, four different companies, two agencies and two two uh two media agencies, a creative agency and a brand. And they've got our alum heading their companies, these are significant size businesses, leading in the way in which we've we help them to understand. So the ripple effect of one person if you're leading, if you're leading a business, can be thousands, let alone the customers or clients that then their people have direct influence over too. So the ripple effect is huge, and we love it. And you know, we've got scholars that come back as speakers or mentors, we've got scholars that have gone on to become executive coaches, they're working in the coaching faculty in the in the community.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

So they feed back into the into the system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

We've had, you know, fellows, the CMOs that have gone on to be CEOs and have come back to run sessions for the fellows in future cohorts. So it is an ecosystem that's I mean, we're based on generosity and reciprocity, right? Because we do everything is for free. So it has to be about what we're giving. All the all everything is about giving more. And so we've got this wonderful virtuous circle where the fellows and scholars and alumni feel that they're being given um this and these amazing experiences, and thus they want to give back and pay it forward or pay it down, and we enable them as much opportunity to do that as well. So, yeah, it's a great community.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Fantastic, fantastic. And I you can just tell by the energy with which you explain all this that you know what it what it means to you. So it's really sort of uh nice, nice to be on the receiving end of that and to hear that and experience that. What what what do the what's the future hold for you in terms of all of this?

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Well, there's there's there's two kind of real desires in the direction of no, there's three desires in the direction of travel. Our alumni programs are just getting bigger and bigger and bigger, yeah, and so we're constantly seeking ways to make that absolutely extraordinary. It's not easy running programs for 1,400 people that now live in probably 40 countries, yeah. Um, but investing in them is a big part of our platform going forward. Developing the virtual campus to something that could be like globally amazing is a big focus, and that'll be a big focus for this year is getting the strategy to drive that forward. You know, I want there's about four million people in our industry around the world. I want them all on the virtual campus, and we've just got to work out a way to do it. Um, and then there'll be a geographic expansion um of the core programs, so of the scholarship um programs going forward. There'll be, you know, I think there's a big opportunity and need in places like Latin America or South Africa or um the Middle East, um, and probably more in APAC. We the scholarship program we actually run in the UK, in Australia, and in the US. But it basically could be in any country, and they probably and it probably should be in every country. Um the fellowship program is a global program, but we run a couple of cohorts a year in different geographies. Um, but the CMOs can be can be based anywhere in the world, they've just got to fly into the residentials. But that could be bigger. You know, we can only take 60, 60 CMOs a year and 90 scholars a year so far. So I think that you know, we've got the opportunity to run more programs in more territories. So those are the three things really investing in the alumni, investing in the virtual campus and making that really scalable so that we can have impact at scale and the expanding the cohorts uh internationally more globally. Those are the three areas.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

So lots going on, lots lots more to do. It's just as well, as you say, that you do something you really enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Yes, because you don't feel like you're working, right? I don't feel like I've worked in 15 years. It's just uh you know an absolute joy. Um and I travel a lot, which is not easy. Um, but you know, the academy is just getting bigger and bigger, which means that obviously the more programs we run, then the more sponsorship um revenues we can we can um attract, and therefore the more we can invest in because we don't make any profits, every penny is invested, which just means the bigger the team, the more resource enables us to do more stuff, you know. That's that's a very typical, you know. We run the whilst it's a not-for-profit, it's run on a shoestring. Uh it's right, we spend the money as if it's our own money. Yeah, um, and you know, we're always um trying to do more than we've probably got the resources to do, and we're in that entrepreneur, you know, catch 22 of you know not having quite as much money and as we really want, and and then not having the resources to do the things we want, and just you know, constantly looking like we're swans but paddling like mad underneath. Um but every day is a is a joy, it is not, it's not a hustle, it's not a hassle, it's a joy, and and long may it continue.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Absolutely, absolutely. And if people want to find out more about this either to attend or to sponsor or or maybe even to get involved with coaching and training.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah, well, yeah, every everything, everything. Like we need we have mentoring, we have coaching, we need speakers, we need really good all of the time because we we're not just doing the programming for the for the six programs that we're running globally, but we're doing it for the alumni all of the time. Yeah, um, and so probably at any one time we're probably dealing with about 250 speakers, inspirational keynote speakers, or subject matter experts in any of the domains, you know, they could they don't have to be marketers. Um, you know, we've got Olympians that work with us, we've got authors, we've got all sorts, because we do have a great platform, isn't a like the virtual campus is huge, that's got 10,000 people on it, and we need, you know, we're probably doing about 50 sessions a year, something like that. So it's huge. That's a constant beast at news meeting. Yeah um, but we do give them the best audiences because we give them the most exceptional talent, and we give them the ones that are thought to be there, right? Um, so yeah, we need as much input as we can. We're always looking for new partners, although our partners are very loyal. So we've got partners that have sponsored us for 15 years. I was with ITV last week, ITV, one of our first ever sponsors in the UK for sponsoring the UK scholarship. They're still sponsoring now 15 years later. Um, but we because we want to expand, we're always looking for new partnerships. Um, and you know, people can get involved on the virtual campus, especially if they're in between roles, so there's a gift there for you. So you just hit the marketingacademy.org, is the website, and have a good route around because there's a shit ton of stuff on there. So the marketingacademy.org is the place to go.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Fantastic. Sharon, any final words you want to share with the audience before we we wrap up today's session?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Well, I think your audiences are in interested in kind of performance and well-being and all of that stuff, right? And so, you know, I would just say my message, even to all of the alumni is you know, you've got one life, and you actually have 100% responsibility for the choices that you make in it. So whilst life can issue no end of shit, and it is a little bit shitty out there right now, how you choose to think about what's happening and how you respond to it, is down to you. And if you really embrace that, it's actually really quite empowering, even when things are going hard, because it's so easy at the moment to feel like the world is out of control and heading towards some sort of freaking Armageddon and you have no control over it, and thus you feel like you're a victim of other people's shit. If all of the time you're thinking, but how I respond to this is up to me, that is totally within my power and in my gift, then there is an empowerment in that that can help you think about things differently. So the the power of the way in which you think or you choose to think, assuming you're of healthy mind, the power of your thinking can change everything in your life for the better. You've just got to know that you have complete ownership over that. Nobody can make you think or feel anything, only you can choose it. So that would be my parting piece of advice if you choose to take it.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Very good advice. Sherlyn Shackle, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Thanks for having me, Richard. I've really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

This is the business of thinking. Mastery doesn't end here. See you in the next episode.